How to use eHRAF World Cultures:
How do I access it?
What is it?
eHRAF World Cultures is a systematically organized collection of thousands of books and articles on cultures from all regions of the world. The purpose of eHRAF is to facilitate analysis and comparison of specific topics between cultures. It may be used to find information on particular cultures, ethnic or immigrant groups, and information on beliefs, superstitions, or subjects, such as political structure, architecture, kinship units, or settlement patterns. This ethnographic database currently contains over one million pages of indexed information on more than 400 different cultural, ethnic, religious, and national groups around the world, and the full-text sources are subject-indexed at the paragraph level.
There are two ways to find documents in eHRAF:
The full-text documents (books, articles, and dissertations) are indexed and organized according to HRAF's comprehensive culture and subject classification systems: the Outline of World Cultures and the Outline of Cultural Materials.
What can I use it for?
Subject Areas:
Mostly cultural, social, and evolutionary anthropology; archaeology (including ethnoarchaeology, experimental archaeology and comparative archaeology); cross-cultural studies; ethnology; ethnographic studies; folklore (emphasis on non-Western literature); linguistics; museum and material culture studies; ethnomedicine; ethnobotany; ethnosociology; ethnohistory; nursing and ethnomedicine, ethnopsychology; childhood studies; political anthropology; anthropology of art; and religious studies.
Please browse the list of Cultures and Topics covered in eHRAF World Cultures to determine whether HRAF’s uniquely indexed and searchable database could also benefit research in areas outside social sciences, including agricultural and animal studies, pharmacology, disease prevention and disaster response, and environmental studies and energy conservation.
Features:
The Outline of World Cultures identifies cultural groupings and simplifies the process of cross cultural research. Each distinct culture within HRAF has been assigned an alphanumeric OWC code. For example:
Mexican Americans - use Chicanos, N007
Scottish - use Highland Scots, ES10
Please note that not every culture listed in the OWC is represented by a file. The OWC is intended primarily as a means of classifying cultural entities rather than serving as a list of cultures listed in HRAF. Due to variations in spelling, proper names, and changes in terminology over time, it can be easy to miss relevant research related to specific cultures. The OWC cross-references all related cultures and assigns each related group the same identifier.
The Outline of Cultural Materials is a list of subjects used to index the texts contained in the HRAF collection. The OCM is comprised of approximately eighty broad terms and over seven hundred narrower terms or OCM sub-categories. Each subject within HRAF has been assigned a numeric OCM code, and each OCM contains a description of the subject and related subjects. For example:
230 - Animal Husbandry
610 - Kin Groups
840 - Reproduction
844 - Childbirth
847 - Abortion and Infanticide